


dead ringers

by duchamp



Category: From Dusk Till Dawn: The Series
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-17
Updated: 2016-12-17
Packaged: 2018-09-09 08:03:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,497
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8883004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/duchamp/pseuds/duchamp
Summary: Preacher’s daughter, he thinks. Thinks of songs about a girl that can’t be reached, some angelic idol not to be sullied; where in others she crashes down to earth, is revealed to be a reviled mortal like all other common folk.





	

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Give me your premonitions, give me your book, give me your prodigious memory,  
give me the blue gaze from your dark eye, give me the devotion of your sleeping birds.

VALERIE MEJER CASO

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

He’s walked off with Richard, bowled dust kicking up from under his boots, when she catches up with them, asks, “The two of you need an extra set of hands?”

The Scout II dead as anything out in this wasteland and they’re trying to jump start the engine, to take to the open road; discover where the next point of origin will be for the Gecko brothers, where they go from here.

Kate’s steady, sweet hot sunlight. Just came back from hell with his brother but looks like she was kissed by the man upstairs himself. There’s an assured quality to her voice that Seth’s never heard before, like she knows they won’t refuse her.

As if they ever could.

 

 

 

 

Their first night alone, Daddy staked and both brothers gone, Seth breaks. Kate sits on the window ledge in their single bedroom, keeps her eyes trained on the Corvette’s form in the parking lot outside, and pretends not to hear him crying.

The TV’s going, sports broadcaster detailing the events of college ball, serving as a buffer. Kate made sure to turn it on after Seth shut himself away in the bathroom, her attempt at giving him some privacy. She’s only known him for less than thirty-six hours, give or take, and it feels wrong to be present during a moment like this. To be able to hear his dry sobs from beyond the bathroom door. The urge to go in and comfort him is unnerving, makes her heart do somersaults in her chest. She should hate him. She should want to hurt him. She shouldn’t have even come with him.

It’s his fault, his and his brother’s, for what’s happened to her, what’s become of her family. But she’s a husk, worn and spent, and Daddy always said caring for others was what made her feel better. Helped put her back together when she was down. So she pads over to the door, knocks softly, says, “You need anything?” Winces at how inadequate the question sounds.

Hears Seth take in a raspy breath, answering, “Nah, kid. I’ll be alright.”

 

 

 

 

Far from alright. That’s what Kate is. She puts on a show daily, acts as if she’s perfectly fine, but Seth knows better. So does Richard.

She loses time. Stares off listlessly during a conversation until one of them catches on, calls her back to the present. She gets tremors. They come and go. She’ll be driving and her hands will start to tremble. She’ll speak up then, say, “Will one of you lazy boys get behind the wheel? My eyes are about to go double-crossed from staring at the same patch of road.”

And Seth and Richard will both act put upon, they’ll grumble and guffaw, flip a coin on who’ll take her place in the driver’s seat, but it’s all for her benefit. To act as if they don’t notice the way she settles in the back, trying to hold her hands still between her thighs.

So many tiny things that Kate tries to keep quiet, to keep to herself. But one day, as is the case with situations like these, she simply can’t anymore. The brothers both know this is inevitable before it happens, know from the own shared experiences—Seth waking from a lucid dream where a gun is being cocked and pressed to his temple, and Richard, hearing their old man’s voice inside his head, ‘No good. Dirty and rotten, that brain of yours. You’d be better off without it. Better off if some good ol’ Doc came along and cut it out.’

It’s late afternoon, sun setting orange and hazy, when Seth comes back from casing a credit union. Opens the door to his and Richard’s motel room and there’s his brother with Kate in his arms, on the floor, her breathing shallow and her face white as anything. Richard’s whispering in her ear; collected, calm, measured. “You’re here,” he’s saying. Repeating: “You’re here and she’s not. You’re here and she’s not.”

He notices Seth in the doorway, tilts his head, motioning for him to close it and deadbolt the latch. Seth does so. Hesitantly joins them after, kneeling down in front of Kate and she meets his eyes. She takes in a lungful of air, confirms Richard’s comforting words, states to him, “I’m here.”

“Yeah, sweetheart.” He takes her face in his hands, assures, “You’re here with the two of us and nothing bad is going to happen to you. Not anymore.” And Seth knows the statement can’t be quantified, not truly. That it’s as false as any of the other broken promises he’s ever made her. But, for know, it’s all he has. 

She doesn’t go back to her room that night; sleeps in Seth’s bed, cradled between both him and Richard. They’re drifting off, the three of them, breaths evening out, lulled by exhaustion, when Richard speaks. “Kate?”

“Yeah, Richie?” She asks.

“Safe as houses,” he murmurs softly.

 

 

 

 

Seth doesn’t know how to be around her, Kate realizes. Acts like he’s sidestepping around broken glass. When they’re both with Richard, it’s not so bad. Not so obvious. They’re fluid. Kate will start a sentence, Richard will fill in the blanks, and Seth will finish it. A cohesive unit, like the Three Kings from Matthew’s Gospel.

But when they’re alone… he’s careful. Shy, even. Makes sure not to step too close to her, to leave adequate enough space between them—whether they’re in the car, walking alongside each other, looking over the floor plans of a bank they’re considering robbing. He chooses his words deliberately. Thinks on them before he speaks. Kate can see thoughts pass behind his eyes, sometimes; can see when he chooses to give voice to them, or simply remain silent.

It’s a version of Seth she’s never seen before. When they were alone together, in the borderlands of Mexico, nearly a year ago, he’d tease her mercilessly. Call her nicknames he knew riled her up—kiddo, preacher’s daughter, Saint Kate—would take such glee in her reactions. Was never unsure around her; allowing his hand to brush the small of her back when they’d check into whatever piece of shit place they were staying at for the night. She remembers him draping a protective arm across her shoulder at rest stops, watchful around anonymous truckers’ leering stares.

She told him she loved him. If anything the declaration should have only served to bring him closer, not prompt him to pull away. But Seth, well, he’s _Seth_ , and he never does anything by the book. “You don’t need to be so careful,” she tells him, when she finally gathers the strength to speak up about it all.

Seth’s pumping gas into their latest vehicle, a 1960’s Ford Galaxie that Richard wired and drove off with after spotting it in a Nashville showroom. “Sorry?” His brows hike over the rim of his sunglasses.

“With me,” Kate clarifies, seeing Richard heading their way from the station, seeing Seth going to cap the Ford’s tank, the car filled, knows if she’s not honest now she’ll not be able to stop fixating over it while they drive the rest of the way to Tacoma. “I meant what I said. I love you.”

Seth fumbles, nearly dropping the fuel nozzle before catching himself, and it would be funny, except that it isn’t. “Katie—” He hasn’t used that nickname since Baja. Since they sat at a taco joint and she’d squirted a slice of lime in his face after he’d snuck too spicy Tabasco into her food on purpose. 

There’s warmth in his eyes. There’s fear, too. And Kate wants to tell him that’s alright, there’s nothing to be afraid of. She’s seen his soul, knows how much he loves her. She wants to tell him they can figure it out, that they can do anything. Anything at all, and she’d be happy, as long as it was him and her and Richie.

“Got this beauty filled up, brother?” Richard interrupts the silence, striding by and slapping the side of the Ford affectionately. The keys jingle from where they dangle by his hooked fingers. (He’d made his own, brilliant as he is. Figured the make and model of the ignition. Made a mold and had them crafted at a hardware store. Kate praised him, and he’d tossed her the freshly minted keys and told her to take the car for a joyride. He’d joined her. Sitting in the passenger seat as she sped down abandoned country roads, bellowing joyously.)

“Yeah,” Seth says, looks away from Kate and swallows hard.

 

 

 

 

He holds up a liquor store by his lonesome. Doesn’t bother with the getaway car, doesn’t tell Kate where he’s gone. He’s running low on pills, on the heroin. He’s only got half a bottle of vodka left—stashed in the drawer between the two single beds in his and Kate’s motel room, side by side with the customary leather backed bible. And isn’t that such a swell joke. Firewater making a home with the Holy Word.

He’s half out of his mind. Sees the streets swim with hallucinations of his father with a stopwatch, of Richard, at such a young age, holding a canister of lighter fluid. He didn’t do his job. He was the one who was supposed to protect his kid brother, not the other way around. Took the brunt of the abuse when Richie wasn’t around, but that didn’t do anyone much good, did it? Didn’t do anyone any good two months ago, either—couldn’t even save Richie then. Couldn’t save him from some horde of creatures that were straight out of one of those paperback books they would read when they were still in overalls and sneakers.

The cashier’s hands shake uncontrollably when she deposits the entire contents of the register into a plastic bag. Bloodshot eyes, black trails down her face where her mascara runs, nose dripping snot and sniffling. “Please don’t,” she’s murmuring in broken English, “please don’t kill me.”

And Seth feels nauseous, ugly, wants to tell her not to worry, that he can barely hold his piece steady as it is, he’s so fucked. “There,” he says instead, pointing to the merchandise nearest the counter, “throw in three bottles of Jack and we’re good.”

She does as she’s instructed, glass clattering among loose change and stacks of paper bills. “Take it,” she gets out, shrill, choked. “Take it, please.”

Grabbing the stuffed plastic with greedy hands, he runs. Takes off in the direction opposite the motel, makes several rounds down side streets until he circles back. Feels that rush of blessed adrenaline. Victory settling, wants to reward himself with a needle in his vein.

Kate’s sitting on the edge of her bed when he gets to their room, wringing her hands nervously, and when she turns her head at the creak of the door, at the shuffle of his feet, he can see her face: pink and ruddy, slightly swollen, lashes wet. She’s been crying. “Where…” she starts, eyes the spoils he carries, stops herself and swallows.

“Got us paid up through the week,” he offers, has nothing better to say to her.

“I didn’t know where you were. I thought—” Go on Kate, say it, he thinks. You thought I’d shot myself up for the last time, didn’t you. Passed out in some anonymous shit hole and drifted away, made the world a little bit better, provided a public service. You thought I left you. “You could have gotten yourself arrested,” she says. “You could have gotten yourself hurt.”

“But I didn’t.” Seth empties the plastic bag for her, onto her bed, contents spilling across the mattress, change and crumpled bills and takes the liquor for himself. Goes to sit on his own bed, toes off his boots, bottled glass trio clinking. He opens one and starts to drink, placing the other two to stand watch on the dresser between.

Kate takes the squandered money, flits through the pile. Counting, arranging it in neat stacks. Back to Seth, says, “It’s like you’re searching for a bad end.” She turns, points to the bottle in his hand and to the others on the dresser; positioned alongside his black compact, holding sweet euphoria. “Like that, like _this_ , isn’t getting you there fast enough.”

“Not searching,” Seth says, whisky going for a rough and tumble down his stomach, settling. “It’s going to seek me out sooner or later, sweetheart. Knows its own kin. Like calls to like, yeah?”

Kate’s shoulders droop at his words. Her chin quivers and she looks like she’s about to cry again, like she was when she didn’t know where he’d went, what he was doing, what new fresh hell he’d gotten himself into before he came back. Seth stares at her silently, admits to himself, I did that; taken a good kid and turned her inside out, given her nothing but heartache.

She steps towards him and takes the bottle of Jack from his hands, screws the lid on tight, placing it on the dresser with the rest of its companions. “I’m no better than you,” she says, hand going to cup his cheek, warm and soft and comforting. Seth leans into the touch, though he means to pull away—spent, high from the liquor store robbery gone, itching to chase it with the needle and dose by his bed. But second to the want for oblivion is Kate in front of him. The only real human contact he’s had for months. His only partner, his only friend. “You’re no worse than me,” she finishes, traces the line of his jaw with gentle fingers. 

“I wish that were true,” he says, and what’s meant to sound like a comic off-hand dismissal sounds mournful instead.

She kisses him, bows her back down to reach him, to get at his level. In the dirt, to stew in the filth, the sin that clothes him. It’s a dry press, reassurance, but Seth changes the angle, opens his mouth and takes Kate in, tastes her tongue, feels her shake above him. A thief, a criminal, even in this.

He reaches out, reaches for her, finds purchase at her side, at her hips. Her camisole rides up and he has her bare skin under his palms, groans when he feels how soft she is. Kate hesitantly grips his neck in answer, fingertips skittering lightly across his arms, his shoulders, his clavicle, before finally settling there, ten points of pressure and he never wants her to let go.

She says his name, breathless already, loving, makes it sound like the epithet of a kind man and not a common con-artist. And there, again, “Seth.” She cards through his hair when he buries his face in her neck, makes a quick and abortive whimper.

Preacher’s daughter, he thinks. Thinks of songs about a girl that can’t be reached, some angelic idol not to be sullied; where in others she crashes down to earth, is revealed to be a reviled mortal like all other common folk. Later, when she’s on her back, stripped and clinging to him, her first, he wonders how he got here, why she chose him. Breath hitching, her thighs gripping him tight, a vise around him, he’s grounded, held to her. And he presses his mouth to her palm, lips brushing the pale host, the lifeline, the vein, the crisscross of all that’s holy to him now.

Richard was holy to him once, like Kate. Now he’s gone. Phantom, specter, night’s leper and their father’s keeper, wearing patricide like a fine suit. Seth knows that he’s prideful of the deed, unremorseful, a sibling’s fury the sharpest knife. He knows Richie’s only ever wanted to staunch the hurt. But now matter how far Seth digs, deep in his belly, searching out forgiveness for him, for them, for the things they’ve done, he fails. Maybe that’s why it’s easier to pretend his kid brother’s dead.

 

 

 

 

She misses him like she has missed her mother, her father, her brother. Discovers he’s wormed his way into her insides, rooted himself at her heart’s stem and she can’t pinpoint the exact moment she started to think of him as family. It’s Seth. Faithless, floundering, a sail now without a runner (without his brother, his other half, the Chang to his Eng) and walking as if he’s got a bone to pick with the universe itself.

She never thought of herself as that girl. Of one who would try to pick up the fallen remnants of some broken boy (man) as she trailed after him, simply wanting to help, to heal, thinking—see me, see me, see me. And now his eyes are gone from her and she has nothing to show for it, nothing but two gaping holes in her middle, bleeding carnage and rage. She spits her last breath at Richard and Scott and curses them, wishes Seth was here to see this, too; to see that she can be mean, hateful, biting. Maybe then he’d see them as better matched. Maybe then he never would have left her on some deserted pavement’s shoulder.

 

 

 

 

Tacoma’s cold. Rainwater carries from the coast, traveling by the wind. Mist and sprawling fall leaves have Kate doing her sweater to the very top button. Night has already settled, Chinese lanterns hanging by the trees at the portside hotel her and the boys check into. Money hasn’t been an issue for awhile now. A decent stretch of five-star suites and fine dining instead of cramped roadhouses and fast food.

Seth doesn’t make any effort to continue their conversation from earlier, and Kate wonders if he’s actually thinking she’ll simply drop the subject altogether. No dice. “Go out with me,” she says, makes sure she words it strong enough that he can’t brush it off as a request he can refuse. Is answered with a jerky nod as he balances his weight from foot to foot.

They go down to the docks, boats still on clear water. Nervous, silent energy between them. “I had this…” Kate hiccups a laugh, rambles on while Seth just stares at her. “… had this whole speech planned, thought on it the entire ride here, now I… I don’t know what to say.”

“You shouldn’t have to say anything,” Seth starts. “Kate—”

“Is it because of what I did?” She blurts, hates how young her voice sounds. “Because I can understand that. I hurt all of you so much, that if you—”

“Jesus.” Seth cuts her off. “Christ, Kate, no. That was her. That wasn’t even you.”

“Then what is it?” Kate manages. Tears start to prickle at her eyes and she blinks, resolved not to cry, not wanting to embarrass herself anymore than she already has. This whole idea was stupid. She’s stupid. What was she thinking—acting like she was completely confident and together and asking Seth to join her out here? Like she could clear the air between them when she can’t even sleep through the night without all the lights on, without wanting someone with her, like a damn child.

“Listen, you…” Seth reaches for her hand, and she allows him to take it in his own. He shakes his head, smiling ruefully. “You died, alright? And I fucked it up… before. I don’t think, that’s my problem. Half the goddamn time I’m not thinking about what it is I’m doing. My actions, how they affect most people.”

“I’m not like most people,” Kate says.

“No,” he agrees, “you’re not.” He turns her wrist over, pushes the sleeve of her sweater up, exposing the underside. Traces the scar there, ugly and pink and Kate almost pulls away; doesn’t know what to make of Seth touching a part of herself she hates so much. “I don’t want to be the reason you hurt,” he admits.   

“Hey,” Kate says. Softly, prompting, has Seth look back up at her. “You can’t live in fear. Isn’t that what you and Richie keep telling me?” In those moments where she can’t see past Hell’s skies, where she feels her body’s autonomy fail her in a panic and waits for Amaru to possess her again, they’re there when she lets them be, holding her close.

“Always know when to use my own words against me, don’t you?” Seth steps closer, rough knuckles going to absently brush her cheek.

“It’s a gift,” Kate jokes, hope unfurling in her. And, for once, she doesn’t try to tamp the feeling down.

 

 

 

 

A kid in a candy-striped top and green eyes watches the hotel’s gumball machine greedily, fixated. Seems so intent on commanding it, Kate half expects one of the treats to actually drop down for him. “My dad says I can’t have any before lunch,” he states, averting his gaze to glance at her, before quickly looking back at the machine.

“That sucks,” Kate says sympathetically. She almost considers taking some change out of her purse and giving it to him, before Richard, leaning at her side along the wall, beats her to it.

He holds out two quarters to the kid, pinched between his fingers. Stoops down when they’re taken by those small sticky hands and whispers, “Our secret.”

He’s offered a gap-toothed smile in return. “Thanks mister,” the kid says, bouncing on his heels as the machine eats the quarters and deposits two gumballs. He sticks them into his pocket and turns back to Richard and Kate, makes a motion like he’s zipping his lips and throwing away the key, then runs off.

“That was sweet of you,” Kate says.

“Eh, I’m in a good mood.” Richard clicks his tongue to the roof of his mouth; points to the sliding glass doors leading out to the courtyard, where Seth’s pulling the Ford forward for them. “Bingo. Let’s blow this joint.”

“Wait,” Kate warns, stopping him from moving towards the entrance with her arm across his chest. She takes the hat he wears where it’s pushed too far back and tilts it forward. “Don’t want you getting burned.”

“Regular ol’ lifesaver,” he croons, kissing her forehead.

“What would you do without me?” She demurs, slipping an arm over his shoulder and resting against his weight as they walk out into the sun.

Richard shrugs. “I honestly don’t know.”

“Come on you two,” Seth announces, standing by the car. He opens the door for Kate, casually lets his hand touch hers. “We don’t want to be burning the midnight oil trying to cover the most miles before we hit New York.”

“Please,” Kate scoffs as she climbs into into the back seat, “you’d try to pull all-nighters every time if Richie and I didn’t ask you to stop.”

“Whatever you say, Katie,” Seth says, lightness in his tone that’s new.

 

 

 

 

“We shouldn’t,” he says, wakes up with her bare and tangled in his arms and still wet between her legs. The deed’s already done, the damaged thoroughly made, and isn’t this all he does—muck everything up? Fuck over anyone he’s ever truly cared for? His own Midas Touch; come near me and you’ll turn to hardened gold, no longer breathing.

Kate’s rolled over in his hold, facing him, flushed cheeks and mussed hair inches from his own, and he really just wants to kiss her again. Trail down her stomach with his hands and mouth and find out how she tastes in the morning. But she’s barely turned eighteen and he’s a twenty-seven-year-old convict junkie with nothing to his name but a shit reputation and a high-school degree. She blinks, considering, hardly awake as it is. When it registers, what he’s said, she has this look on her face as if he’s slapped her. “You…” She trails off, shakes her head, burrows closer, like she can convince him he’s wrong merely by tucking herself underneath his unshaven chin.

“Kate,” he says, imploring, feels sick to his bones because she deserved so much more than this—her first time in a ramshackle motel on the outskirts of nowhere, not in a rented limo with a too eager teenage boy on prom night, with the corsage and dress and dance to slow music. “You don’t want this,” he continues, wonders how much more hurt he’s going to have to cause to make her see sense. “I’m not right in the head.”

“You’re fine,” Kate murmurs, briefly kisses his neck and stresses, “you’re _good_.”

He wants to believe her. He wants… he just _wants_ , but he’s been a selfish enough bastard for his entire time on this earth and he’s going to have to call it eventually; declare that he’s gotten more than should have ever come to him in the first place. “ _I_ don’t want this,” he says. “I don’t want you. Not like this.”

That does it.

 

 

 

 

He goes to the blood well with Richard. Sees the white tarp swaying in the wind from the wooden planks. Tries to imagine Kate under it. Wonders if he’ll ever be able to see her in his mind’s eye the same way again. Warm, caring, clean, and smiling; alive.

It doesn’t matter. Why would she even want to live on in his memories? He took every ounce of love and affection she gave him and spat it out as if it was nothing. As if she meant nothing.

Her body’s not there. But her cross is, chain crusted with dried red. “Where is she?” He doesn’t recognize his own voice. Needs a goddamn drink. “Where is she, Richard?”

“She was… she was here. I don’t understand…” His brother’s voice sounds foreign to his ears, too. Small and unsure. Hurt. “Seth, I—we’ll find her. There has to be an explanation. I’ll fix this.”

“There’s no fixing this, Richard.” He walks off with her necklace balled up in a tight fist. Remembers the clasp getting tangled in her wet hair when she got caught in the rain. He’d tried to help, thumb and forefinger at the back of her neck. But it was two weeks after he’d rejected her and she’d been trying to keep her distance. Told him to simply take a pair of scissors and cut her hair off. He did, handed her the matted mass and told himself he’d done the right thing—pushing her away.

Not particular, he stocks up at Jacknife Jed’s. Demands a set of wheels and is offered a pick-up truck from the staff. Drives aimlessly, uncapping one beer bottle after the other. ‘What are you doing, Seth?’ Sweet in his ear, stinging and unwelcome as well, concern from the dead. ‘You’re going to crash,’ she chides, pale ghost in the passenger seat, and he knows he’s officially gone round the bend. He’s out of his depth. ‘I could have cared for you,’ she continues, sad. ‘If you had only let me.’

“You were so good.” He grits out the words through a sore and restricting throat. “I hurt you. I’m sorry.”

She doesn’t answer. He looks to his left and there’s nothing but empty air.

He loved her. He _loves_ her, but she doesn’t. She can’t. She’s dead.

 

 

 

 

“I could see you through her eyes,” she tells him.

Time is moving molasses slow at midnight, clock ticking closer to one in the morning, and Kate can’t sleep. Has been counting down the seconds, minutes, and hours since Seth went to bed with her. He’s lying next to her on his side, awake now, arm a bracing hold against her stomach where she’s on her back. “Kate.” It’s gentle and encouraging, the way he says her name.

“You ever stared down a kaleidoscope?” She asks.

“Sure,” Seth answers.

“I know that she was inhabiting _my_ body,” Kate explains, “but when she was in control it was like I was looking through one of those. Everything was changed. Distorted.”

“What did you see when you looked at me?” The question is barely audible, and Kate doesn’t think Seth meant to ask it aloud.

She flits through the multiple truths in her head. (Every bad choice you ever made. Every terrible thing you ever did. The moment you left me, repeated. Over and over again. She mocked me for loving you.)

“Don’t ask me that,” she says. 

 

 

 

 

Her body is her own. Queen of Hell gone, defeat still twinkling like so many stars in the not so distant past, a triumph. But Amaru’s still there. Black, molten, and hateful. Dictating her habits, how she copes. A whisper in her ear, resembling muted static. A compulsion.

The first time she kisses Seth since she’s been back, since she’s been herself again, is after a nightmare. His mouth is familiar, yet entirely new at the same time. He’s quiet, still, seems to fear spooking her with any sudden movement. Then Kate makes a noise in the back of her throat, relief and wanting, and he animates. Twists till he’s above her and she’s beneath, mattress pressing against her sweat-slick camisole, panic-stricken beads welling up along her skin, excess adrenaline pulsing. She should feel trapped but she doesn’t. 

“I want you,” she whispers, rasped humming of the AC in the background, and he puts his lips to hers. Lax, unhurried, like they have years ahead of them to do only this. He licks a pattern over her jaw, her neck. She lets out a whine and grabs at one of his hands, places it to splay along the hem of her camisole. She rises off the bed and they both lift it off her.

She’s bare now from the waist up, Seth muttering, “Christ,” when he takes a nipple into his mouth, rolls it between his tongue and teeth, and Kate swears the room spins for an instant. They fall back, his arms bracketing either side.

“Where?” He asks after a moment, voice thick, seems to be balancing on the precipice of an emotion she can’t give words to.

Kate knows what he wants from her, trails her fingers down her body and places them on her abdomen, points to the place nearest her middle, and to the other, higher at the jut of her left rib, underneath her breastbone. Seth follows her direction, ducks his head down and places open-mouthed kisses at both spots. Tongue laving, hot scrape against her skin. Eases the memory where Carlos’ bullets tore through.

She arches under his ministrations, feeling dazed, overwhelmed. Brings a tentative hand to cradle his head, grab at the short strands there, making for an anchor where she feels tossed out to sea. “Please,” she whimpers, not even having the slightest idea what she’s asking for.

But Seth responds anyway, doesn’t need elaboration, moving up in one fluid motion, cupping her chin and opening his mouth to hers. “I’m sorry,” she hears him confess between kisses, “I’m so sorry.”

And there’s a ringing in her ears, a constant pressure, like she’s deep underwater, as she tells him it’s not his fault, not really, that her death isn’t one to include on his long list of sins. “Don’t,” she assures. “Don’t blame yourself.”

Her edges away from her slightly at that, looks poised to say something.

“What?” Kate asks, hand going to flatten a bit of hair at his forehead that’s sticking up. Wishes she could still peer into his soul during moments like this, know what he’s feeling before he buries it.

“Nothing,” Seth says, lets out a heavy breath and goes to kiss her again.

 

 

 

 

Choral psalms from on high, sung by boys who are only older than Seth was by several years when he was last seen kneeling in a pew. Opening a hymnal. Reciting the rites for his father when they laid him to rest.

His skin is tacky, palms slippery with sweat, an ache forming at his temples. A sinner in the house of the Lord. He feels sick, has the urge to bolt for the doors. He shouldn’t be here, has no right, not matter what the priests say. They don’t really mean what they impart, do they? Practice what they preach, ‘All those who seek shelter are welcome here.’ Don’t want the worst vermin, only the ones who’ve, at their worst, lied to their family. Punched in early at work, perhaps. Stole a lottery ticket.

Not him.

The service is not very crowded for a Sunday morning. Mostly the elderly, a pair of young parents with a baby on the way, and a class from, what looks to be, a parochial school. Seth surveys all of them, squeezing his knee at intervals, anxious, leg bouncing. When the priest goes to the altar and starts the liturgy in archaic Latin, though, he calms. (Roman Catholic Mass with Richard at their local parish. Mama still present, holding him on her lap. He can barely recall, but he knows enough that she stayed for some time before she ran. Was he three? Younger? Oshkosh and warm arms encircling. There were bruises by where her gold bracelets were. The old man hurt her, too. He knows. He _knows_ this. She didn’t leave because of him and Richard, she didn’t, she _didn’t_ …)

He can’t manage the courage to pray to Him, if He even exists, but he talks to Kate in his head. Tells her the things he never could while she was breathing. Indulgences: that the only reason he’d made fun of her squealing laughter is because it was infectious. How he liked the way she’d made eggs when they were able to spare enough money for a kitchenette. How she was so unfailingly beautiful that she was all he could ever think about; when he slept, when he woke, when he was pulling one over on some prick for some cold hard cash, when he was so high and drunk and lost to the world he couldn’t even stand. He tells her how he’d have worshiped her if he hadn’t broken her heart; how he’d have kissed her, eaten her out, spent hours between her legs.

After the service, he considers going to confession. Decides on it, sitting in the slim booth. Screen and drape surround him, constrictive and terrifying. He hears the priest enter, settle. “Bless me, Father—” The words are choked, and Seth can hardly finish. What would he say? My brother murdered our own blood, but I’ve forgiven him. I’ve still protected him. I’ve still loved him. The girl I was in love with, who was so young and God-fearing and _kind_ , I hurt. Kidnapped. Used. Left. And now she’s lying in an unmarked grave, body missing, place unknown, that I helped send her to.

He doesn’t finish. He bolts. Pushes the drape back and flees. Kate’s cross a sizeable weight in his pocket, where he’s kept it since the blood well. “Can’t do it, sweetheart,” he mutters. “I tried, but I can’t do it.”

 

 

 

 

When it was simply the two of them, she’d pray every night. Go down on her knees by her bedside and clasp her hands together in supplication, head bowed. Her lips would move, silently giving thanks or asking for forgiveness. Seth never knew which. She never spoke her dialogue with Him out loud, knowing it made Seth uncomfortable.

Peaceful now, as much as it can be, with Richard on the road, three runaways simpatico, there should be more reason to praise the celestial’s name. But Kate never does. At least, not that Seth sees. And he supposes he would, since she’s migrated to every space he ever fills; his body, his bed. He wonders if she’s lost her faith, wouldn’t blame her if she did, but he’ll never ask. His relationship with Him is already so tenuous and undefined—and there is belief now, a sliver, delicate. Seth prayed, and she was brought back to him. Coincidence, perhaps. Yet it planted doubt where there was once surety that He didn’t exist, and Seth supposes that’s belief all on its own.

He’s kept her possession. The thin chain with the flimsy clasp, with the small cross strung from it. On his person, always. (A stolen touch, sun hot, an ancient force above him, hellfire nipping where she was swallowed whole, gun dropped—there were times when he thought he’d die with it, too.) He hasn’t returned it to her yet, no time seeming right. Doesn’t want to open an old wound if she sees her faith as distant ignorance, or if she’s angry at God.

But she’s at his side now, mostly every moment of every day, and it feels wrong to keep something that’s rightfully hers. As if he’s lying, as if he’s stolen.

She’s pliant, sated, beside him and half-dressed. Plants a series of kisses up his tattooed flames, taking her time and quirking a smile when he looks down at her. “You’re going to be angry with me,” he says, words tumbling out on their own accord.

Kate raises a brow. Shimmies slightly closer and rests her flushed cheek on his arm. “Don’t ruin the moment.” She’s taking this as a quip, maybe verbal foreplay.

“I’ve got something to give you,” he says, and moves away. Goes to the dresser beside the bed to retrieve his wallet, unzips the outward compartment and brings out her necklace. Kate sits up when he does, tucks her legs under her and holds out her hand. Seth gives her the necklace and she takes it, pinches the cross between her fingers, gold glinting. “This belongs to you. I was waiting for… I don’t know what. Didn’t want my timing to be for shit.”

Kate turns the pendant over and over in her palm, silent. When she speaks her voice is distant, caught in the past. “When we were at the Twister, all that time ago, Daddy presented one of those Culebra dancers with a cross. He thought it would keep her away from us.” Kate laughs wetly and wipes at her eyes. “She ate it.”

A gruff chuckle escapes Seth’s throat and he sits back down beside her. He wants to reach for her bare knee but stops himself, doesn’t know if she’ll decide she’s mad at him for keeping this from her for so long.

“It’s strange,” Kate continues, “now that I think about it. When Amaru’s blood entered me, and I healed, she ripped this off right away. Guess these symbols hold some power, after all.” She brings her thumb forward and traces the deep crease along Seth’s temple, gentle. “Thank you,” she says.

 

 

 

 

Keys in the ignition, Seth to his left and Kate at his back, Richard asks, “Where to now?”

Red haze teems late, going hand in hand with South Carolina’s heat, moisture rising, dense, from every surface. Trekking back up north sure seems appealing. But Kate just shrugs, says, “Surprise me.”

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from David Cronenberg's _[Dead Ringers](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094964/)_ , a classic as far as codependent sibling relationships go. [Chang and Eng Bunker](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chang_and_Eng_Bunker) are also referenced in that film as well. Find me on [Tumblr](http://highsmith.tumblr.com/) if you’re a film hoe and/or SethKate trash.


End file.
